Joe Biden Makes Tour of Central America to Discuss Security

photo: AP

Vice President, Joe Biden, arrived in Mexico City today to meet with Mexican president, Felipe Calderon, as the first leg of a journey that will take him to five Latin American countries. On Tuesday he will be in Honduras to visit with President Porfirio Lobos to discuss security issues revolving around stopping the importation of illegal drugs into the US through Central America. According to El Salvador's daily, El Diario de Hoy, the five countries (Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Panama and Colombia) have expressed the desire to put the decriminalization of illegal drugs on the negotiation table, something that Senior Director for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the White House, Dan Restrepo, categorically rejects. Last week, Secretary of National Security, Janet Napolitano, was in El Salvador, delivering exactly that message.

The presidents of the five countries cite the fact that they are the ones experiencing the worst effects of the so-called 'War on Drugs', these including thousands of deaths, overflowing prisons, weakened democratic institutions, and entrenched corruption. The experiences of Mexico (under the auspices of the Merida Initiative) and Colombia (Plan Colombia) moreover indicate that these policies neither staunch the flow of drugs to the US, nor have reduced levels of violence in their respective countries. In fact, US - initiated 'Plans' have led to a remilitarization of a region that has been taking measures in recent years to restore peace through formal accords and in building confidence in the democratic process by taking part in legitimate electoral processes. Billions of dollars of US taxpayers' monies have been thrown at these initiatives, to no avail.

According to the Mayor of Mejicanos (a suburb of San Salvador), Blandino Nerio, the American war on drugs is a euphemism for counterinsurgency. Speaking at length today about the educational programs introduced recently by the ruling FMLN with an eye to rebuilding the national economy, Nerio is not impressed with the foreign policy of Barack Obama. Without departing from  the policies of any of his predecessors, the Obama administration has tied the 'aide' it is offering this tiny country of 7 million people, to the replacement of its civilian public security minister with a military official with ties to Roberto D'Aubuisson. Not surprisingly, this news has caused serious indigestion for the FMLN, who claim that this is in contravention to the 1992 Peace Accords, for which they relinquished their arms. It remains to be seen if Biden will be able to sweeten the deal in his visit this week.